Posted on 09/04/2014 8:12:20 AM PDT by lbryce
Research confirms that the “acting white” charge is a real problem that intimidates some black students. Our job is to confront it.
As kids go back to school this week, when it comes to black ones, it’s time to do some myth-busting. This week’s topic: black teens calling their nerdy black peers “white” for liking school. It’s a problem, because too often, black kids who want to fit in end up letting their grades slip.
The social scientists John Ogbu and Signithia Fordham first called attention to this phenomenon in the 1980s. But over the past 10 years, a myth has settled in that the “acting white” idea has been disproven—that black kids do not devalue scholarly achievement as white, and that people who say so are promulgating a falsehood. A recent column by Nia-Malika Henderson is emblematic of this denial. She wrote that when Barack and Michelle Obama criticize the black community for tolerating these “acting white” allegations, “their rhetoric, while seen as refreshing and bold by some, actually seems to confirm a stereotype, that somehow African Americans don’t value academic achievement.”
Obama, though, has been arguing the case for a long time. In the Democratic Convention speech that introduced him to America in 2004, he derided the idea that “a black kid with a book in his hand is acting white.” But this summer a decade later, when Obama brought up the “acting white” problem in his pep talk to black boys kicking off his My Brother’s Keeper initiative, Henderson and other columnists—with the welcome exception of Jonathan Capeheart—dogpiled on him for hanging on to an illusion.
Folks, no. The research confirms that the “acting white” charge is a real problem that intimidates some black students away from doing their schoolwork as diligently as they’d prefer.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
As the article notes; It’s a problem, because too often, black kids who want to fit in (with their black peers) end up letting their grades slip.
FTA:
Folks, no. The research confirms that the “acting white” charge is a real problem that intimidates some black students away from doing their schoolwork as diligently as they’d prefer.
But the evidence that the “acting white” charge is about scholastics and not the hang of your pants is too crushing to ignore. Ogbu’s book is evidence enough. Then there are media articles written nationwide— the Times did a signature one—where it is crystal clear that what’s seen as “white” is doing well in school. Of course bookish black kids will also tend to dress and speak in a certain way—but that doesn’t mean these are what the taunts are mainly about. ==========================================================================================================================================================================
So blacks have now institutionalized the equating of doing well in school and overall success with being white and that if you, as a black person wanted to do well in school, achieve success in life, you would otherwise reject it because you know, success, achievement is a 'white' thing, something to avoid. And which seems to say the division between blacks and whites, no matter the opportunities given to blacks, they will forever fail because the division, gulf between blacks and whites as being in seeming social diametric polar opposition, no matter what.
What it does is to take racism to a new level in which black people subvert any idea of achievement, economic upward mobility. What it does is to take racism to a new level, one that is exponentially more harmful to blacks in its self defeatism, than the overt white prejudicial racism of an earlier era.
NYT:June 26,2000:Growing up, Growing Apart
Excerpt
After school one day, Aqeelah and two other black girls were running down the hall when one of them accidentally knocked a corkboard off the wall. Aqeelah told her to pick it up, but the girl kept going.
''What's the matter with you?'' Aqeelah asked. ''You knocked it over, you pick it up.''
Why do you have to be like a white person? her friend retorted. Just leave it there.
Excerpt
Most young people here seem to accept the racial split as inevitable. It's just how it is, they say. Or, it just happens. Or, it's just easier to be with your own kind.
Original Title:No, ‘Acting White’ Has Not Been Debunked
Reading, writing and arithmetic are all White things? Well...More job opportunities for me!
Is a white or Asian failing in school referred to as “acting black”?
Acting White means going to school every day, on time, working hard, not raping your fellow students, not smoking pot, not stealing, not having random wanton sex. Guess that’s expecting far too much.
By inference, I would have to say yes. Great comment.
Asians don’t seem to have a problem with learning and still identifying with their culture. This whole story sums up the overlying problem in the black community, themselves. They can blame racism, etc but they’re the ones who are holding themselves back and not prospering economically.
Does this suggest the return of segregated schools so whites can learn in their culture, blacks in their culture, Hispanics in their culture, Asians in their culture, Middle Easterners in their culture....
So much for the “Melting Pot” illustration I learned in school.
Maybe it isn’t because they are avoiding “acting white”. Maybe the black kids just aren’t a smart as the white kids, on average.
Before anyone claims I am being racist - I am not saying it is their fault - just that it might be the case.
It goes beyond that.
"The Man be keepin' us down" is the mantra of the black underclass. Racism is the cause of their condition.
When one of them succeeds academically, and goes on to enter the middle class, it's a slap in their faces.
They cannot confront the idea that what's keeping them down is their own lack of intelligence, laziness, and general bad attitudes.
How could anyone possibly think that?
Well played!
The Rats only want to keep this going because uneducated people are easier to manipulate and control.
Generally speaking, it seems that Negroes have never wanted integration.
Many years ago at an invited presentation to high school students in Arlington VA I handed out the Washington Pest columnist’s (Carl Rowan...a “black” journalist) article entitled “Acting White”. Without reading it, many of the black students got angry and belligerent. Sheesh! For those type, there is no hope.
Been saying it all along, it’s not about race....it’s about culture.
You cannot choose your race. It’s wrong to discriminate on the basis of something the person cannot control. That was the essence of the Civil Rights movement in the beginning.
The problem is the movement became about trying to dictate that cultures, something a person chooses to belong to, are equal, and if you don’t agree with this, you might as well be a Klan member in their eyes.
Seems like an opportunity also for academic entrepreneurs to create white black schools.
That is already discounted as being part of the new black self-defeatism as consequence of their racism against whites. They can as sure as heck blame racism for their problems, their own racism against whites is proving to be far more insidious and self-destructive than the overt white racism claiming whites refusing them the opportunities they need to succeed.
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